CTO · CDO · Head of Product · Northern Ireland
I turn ambiguity
into delivery.
Most technology failures aren't technical. They're organisational — unclear direction, misaligned teams, complexity that compounds until nothing ships. I build the structures that make delivery inevitable.
Track record
What I do
Five problems I solve well.
Standing up technology functions
Greenfield to operational. Architecture defined, team built, culture and delivery process established — before organisational patience runs out.
Recovering stalled delivery programmes
When engineering has lost credibility with the business, timelines have slipped, and confidence is eroding. I diagnose the real constraints, restructure what needs restructuring, and restore momentum.
Taking AI and data from prototype to production
Most organisations have run AI experiments. Few have shipped them into production at scale. I bridge that gap — from RAG architectures to agentic systems to the data models that make them reliable.
Turning data into a platform capability
Data trapped inside engineering is a cost. Data that is standardised, discoverable, and reliable is a commercial advantage. I build the latter — and make it usable by the business, not just the team that built it.
Advising founders and boards on technical direction
Architecture decisions, build-vs-buy trade-offs, AI opportunity, engineering investment — a clear-eyed view, without the agenda of someone trying to sell something.
Where I create impact
Capabilities that map directly
to the problems that matter.
- Building engineering organisations from zero or scaling existing ones
- Designing canonical data models and integration architectures
- Delivering AI and LLM systems from prototype into production
- Aligning engineering investment with commercial outcomes
- Establishing ISO 27001 security posture and compliance frameworks
- Replacing fragile, bespoke ETL with scalable, repeatable pipelines
- Organisational design: structure, OKRs, culture, and accountability
- Board-level advisory on technical strategy and AI opportunity
How I think
"Most organisations don't have a technology problem.
They have a clarity problem."
I have operated in environments where the technical complexity was genuine — distributed systems, AI platforms, fragmented financial data, global engineering teams. What I have consistently found is that the technical problems are solvable. The harder problem is always the same: creating the conditions for good decisions to be made, at every level, quickly enough to matter.
That is what I build: organisations where the strategy is understood, the priorities are clear, and the teams have the autonomy and the tools to execute. The technology follows.
See this in practice →Experience
Transforming data onboarding and integration for a global regulatory platform. Designed canonical data model for fragmented financial markets; introduced AI-assisted field mapping; positioned data as a repeatable platform capability rather than a bespoke engineering effort.
Took a deep-tech platform from concept to enterprise-ready in 9 months, securing £1M+ enterprise deals. Shipped a production RAG/LLM system in 12 weeks — winner of the Smart City Expo World Congress award for Data & AI (2024). Certified ISO 27001:2022.
Founded Flexera's Belfast engineering hub post-acquisition; grew to 40 people in 18 months with a 60/40 gender balance. Expanded to lead 130+ engineers across 7 global locations. Automated 60% of previously manual content curation tasks through applied ML.
Citi (Big Data Lead, VP; Global Data Mining Team Lead), Oracle (Senior data warehouse engineer). Built the financial services and data engineering foundation across systems processing $1Bn+ daily in FX transactions.
If you're building something complex
and need someone who has done it before —
I am open to CTO, VP Engineering, Chief Data, and Fractional CTO engagements.
Based in Northern Ireland; happy to travel.